Developing critical self-regulation and executive functioning skills is crucial for children to cope with the academic and social demands of all of their environments.

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Students are demonstrating significant challenges with regulation and overall coping skills following long periods of sedentary, remote learning. Apart from the challenges stemming from remote learning, children with special needs often exhibit high levels of dysregulation and overall developmental challenges which impact learning.

 

Nowadays, students have more access to technology-based opportunities than ever before, especially considering the forced move to online learning in the last couple of years, and, for many, their own preference for screen-based technologies. Children are moving less, and they’re using technology more! However, research and our own observations have shown that increased access to technology has not resulted in higher achievement! We will show that technology, when implemented into an active, dynamic learning environment with well-defined strategies, can benefit learning significantly.

 

Existing evidence and research will be provided, alongside a comprehensive document with research summaries and links to all research shown. It is crucial for us as educators to implement programs that are strongly evidence based. The research presented supports the need for highly structured movement/sound and a sensory approach to helping children get ready for work and to cope more effectively with academic and social demands. We will review not only existing research, but we will also discuss current ongoing research projects. We will discuss the role of educators and parents in handling sensory issues. A practical sensory regulation program incorporating movement, music, and rhythm will be demonstrated and will be available for educators and therapists to use with all students.

 

Data collection and progress monitoring is an important part of determining the effectiveness of these approaches. An effective, automated data collection system will be provided with the sensory regulation program.

 

This will be a fast-paced, fun, interactive, collaborative workshop with a lot of activity and information.